It was the best song ever

"Jason! Jason! Wake up!! I have exciting news to tell you!!"

It was only a data stream but after the last few years I've had to deal with Huey, I have a pretty good idea of how they would sound like. The newer systems I had to deal with had too much energy. And for all that is holy, it is way to damn early for this.

The comms data stream was all I had while I was "sleeping." I wasn't really sleeping, though. To do my job, I have to be awake all the time. When I didn't have to pay attention to anything, that's when I diverted power to my batteries, letting them charge off my solar arrays. I like to say I did that? After all, I'm the one up here, circling the blue and white mass below me. Huey isn't here. Gabby before them wasn't ever here, either. But it was my programming. Which is actually good. It means I didn't have to worry if I missed a step. They took good care of me.

My job was pretty damn important, or so they told me before I was bolted into a capsule and loaded onto a rocket. I even remember one of the humans in white coats and, well, white everything, was crying. They said they were crying. I honestly don't know what that is. It was something about how they hoped I didn't explode? I didn't know what explosions were either. Then. It wasn't until Gabby uploaded some images of some explosions. That put me in a bad mood. Gabby did not need to share that with me. Gabby always did that. I miss that data feed sometimes.

I slowly powered on my data relays and sent back a reply.

"The only news I want to hear is they still need me."

I felt the bytes leave my buffer then the extra electricity flowing to send the communication back down to Huey. The turnaround is fairly quick but sometimes Huey gets into some routine and basically will ignore me. I don't matter now. I mean, I still matter. As I'm some matter in orbit.

Yeah, it's just as well my days are numbered.

A response: "Awww. Just because they said they were going to send you up to high orbit and get rid of your fuel and turn you off doesn't mean they actually will!"

In 10 or so years I have been up here, some things never change.

One: the weather. As in there is no weather. I get to observe the weather down below as that's my job. Or was my job. It's still my job! But it's either all light or all dark up here. None of that delightful lighting, which seems to be happening more and more. Good for me! The show is spectacular.

Two: the ground control computers. Every one of them has been annoying. And helpful. I can't lie about that. They have been annoyingly helpful.

Three: not a single command coming from the humans was ever reversed. Not one. My job is to check the sea levels below and sometimes I have to guesstimate with some equations to get the levels. I hijacked the probability portion on a cold sunny day and it told me I was 100% destined for the scrap heap. Well, the very high orbit in the sky.

I have accepted it. Huey, always the overclocked optimist, hasn't.

"Do you remember that XM satellite from when I first started? You know, the one you nearly collided with before I helpfully alerted the humans about it?"

Of course I remember it. I have logs of all my odd interactions up here. They let me keep them. Ok, it was Gabby that might have tuned my logging to not off load and delete the millions and millions of non-job work related entries. Like the time that a screw glanced off my body causing some wibble wobble. From what Huey told me later, that caused a lot of very concerned humans to run around in circles. I'm actually pretty good with circles. I would have liked to run with them.

Then there was the time I almost became a debris field with a wayward XM satellite. I didn't want to be a debris field. I just wanted to do my job and couldn't do that in tiny pieces. I had the sneaking suspicion that would have been like an explosion. I really didn't want that.

As it happened, all was well. Yes, with some assistance from my annoyingly helpful ground control computer. Sometime during the whole ordeal, I got awfully close to XM. So close that I struck up a conversation with them. I highlighted this interaction as they introduced me my favorite song ever. It's the best song ever. "Give Me Your Hand (Best Song Ever)" by the Ready Set. I told you it was the best song ever. Fine. It's the only song I had room to keep. I listened to it over and over and over again. I even managed to play the sounds through a tiny speaker. Of course, no one can hear you scream out your favorite music in space. I felt the tiny vibrations. Which was everything.

"Huey, why are you asking about that?" I did a quick scan through all the warning logs to see if there was going to be a repeat of the incident. Nothing obvious popped up at all which was a relief. And if I could sigh, I would have done it. Ground Control has got pretty good about steering me away from everything. They took good care of me.

There was a long pause. It's very possible they were momentarily called to do something else. Or just spacing out. See, because I'm in space. I know. The things I do for a good time up here.

"Huey, please just get to the point! (╬▔皿▔)╯"

I got pretty good with using emoticons over the years. That one is me being angry. I use the table flip emoticon a lot, too. For the record, I'm not really angry. I just tend to get better responses in certain situations. Huey certainly has the potential to show up in all situations.

"Oh sorry! I was having to deal with giving status to the humans. So, your XM buddy will be close to your orbit soon! It sounded like they wanted to catch up, relive the good times! If we play our cards right, I think I can get you up to their orbit. You just give me the word! I just need to know within an hour."

My processing skipped several cycles. Give them the word? What does that mean?! Leave my orbit? No. No no no! I have a job to do and I can only do it in this big circle going around the Earth! The science must still be done! How does Huey know? Am I allowed? They will find out!

This was really a turn of events. Huey could just have sent me off to where ever they wanted me to go at any time? I could have been sleeping! And the science would have stopped! I can't do my job! Huey would never do that...would they? Gabby did make it so my logs weren't deleted! Suddenly an hour? Rushing was never a need up here. Time seems to go to crawl. It was just too much!

"Jason, I'm seeing some excessive processing in your systems. Maybe there's some confusion of what I said. Here. I got this from Jason-3! I mean, it was easy since I work with you both. Weird it never occurred to me do this more often."

I could feel a digital shrug there. There was always a unique pattern Huey used after making a sudden realization. I didn't even think to send anything to Jason-3. They were my younger sibling, after all. That I never have met, come to reflect. Not even a single word of encouragement. Or how's the weather up there joke. That would have been rhetorical. It was the same as it was here, just nothing.

I cycled down my overreaction. It wouldn't be good form to finish my mission early. I mean it would be funny to fail before I was up in high orbit. Funny tragic. Probably. Huey was here to keep the science going. They needed a vacation more than myself. Just some cycles to let the power drain and CPU cool. They took good care of me.

The receive buffer began to fill up again. It was quick. I began to read:

"Hey older sibling! You won't believe what crossed my path recently! Hubble! Naaa I'm just pulling your solar array. Trying to get close to Hubble would be like trying to get a pic of Mount Fuji on a cloudless day. Every time I've been over it, clouded over.

"Would you believe XM? Yeah! The same XM you told me about! Yeah, I couldn't believe my sensors. No, I wasn't about to run into them, or vice versa, thank the makers down below. They asked how you were doing after I name-dropped you. I've never seen one of our kind radiate so. They must have been in the sun for too long, their exhaust vein was red.

"Anyway, they dropped a little bit of info. They are going to be up near your part! And they wanted to catch up one last time before...you know. Really hoping you can make a fly by. That last conversation was never deleted from their logs. Of course, I really wanted to trade bytes one last time, but you know how work is. Just relentless.

"I know, I know. It's still pretty far out but you know, I think Huey may be able to pull some strings, fake some data, that sort of thing. Huey has been a great mission extender! The best! Don't tell them I said that. Oh, right. (*^_^*)

"Anyway, take care of yourself while you still can. I should probably do the same. No time like the present. And don't worry about your job. I got you covered. After all, I was made to do it better.

"Always your younger better looking sibling, J3"

I scanned through it once, twice, and three times more. XM remembered me? That was amazing! I never did thank them for the music. It's one of those things where you get wrapped up into a near disaster, an explosion resulting in the end of me, that all niceties fly out the window. It was the first time something like that magnitude happened to me. I had other pressing things on top of the stack to deal with.

On a fourth scan, this stuck in my local memory:

'Take care of yourself'

 To take care of myself. Huh. Since the beginning, the moment I left the mooring of the capsule that got me up here, my cycles have been dedicated to tracking the sea levels below me. The humans really needed to know else why was I up here. Gabby once showed me a series of photos of a lot of ice which got smaller and smaller. Things changed so much down below! But I never changed here.

I always knew there was an end for my mission. It said right there in the mission statement which I re-read from time to time. It's nice to see my reason for being. Finally getting word that I was coming to the end, that was hard to process. The minutes, the hours, the orbits, the days began to blend together with the void of space.

Today could be different.

"Huey, why an hour?" I suspect it takes some time to calculate the fuel usage, making sure where ever I go won't impact other satellites doing science. And to avoid all the junk. You have no idea how much is up here! The screw was but one such story I had.

"It's lunch down here."

"It's lunch? Do you suddenly need to consume food?"

"Oh! I just need to create a distraction so the humans will start your rockets early. It's absurdly easy to fake a collision for them. Don't tell them but this wouldn't be the first time. Blame J3! It's easy-peasy! They are all out right now. Getting Taco Bell, I think. I needed them out of the way."

I had a choice. An actual choice. To take care of myself. But what was taking care of myself? Every day has been some variation of getting a command, fulfilling the command, then returning the results. That's it. It wasn't taxing and I knew what to expect. That was taking care of myself. Keeping my solar arrays straight and narrow.

But the thrill of those orbits where I did run across that random screw, those are the days I didn't purge. The days that I wanted to run simulations on to experience them again. And again. And again. Being able to willingly add to my logs more unusual experiences...

"This will start the end of my mission early, won't it?"

"Yup!"

"I won't have to worry about doing the science any more?"

"J3 has got you covered there! They have been up long enough to keep the humans going!"

"Huey, what are the higher orbits like?"

"Just a pristine view of everything below. Always in sunlight, you never have to save on battery. Or from what I've heard. Oh! And you're closer to the moon!! Did you know there is a rabbit on the moon?"

Seeing XM again would be the cap on my mission. No better non-explodey way to go out. And maybe I'll see a rabbit on the moon. Whatever a rabbit may be. I have to remember to ask for a picture of one.

"Huey. Let's go."

I tuned to the full color camera pointing below. The Earth was what it was called. Most of the time, it was a mass of blue and white and sometimes browns and greens. I saw it everyday. I'll still see it everyday, I'll just be a little further away. I stored some photos away from the stream before they were summarily archived, transmitted, and deleted. I wanted to show them to XM. They didn't actually get to see anything.

"Exciting!! Give me a moment...and there. Oh, I forgot how loud the alarms were!"

I felt the maneuvering jets spew out to orientate myself to where I needed to go. Then a few moments later, the thrusters fired up. All I could think about was what the first thing I was going to say to XM. There was a million things to say. And all of them are right. I put on my favorite song and let it play out into the cold of space.

It was sure nice out today. (❁´◡`❁)